Portrait Project

Kevin Omwega

MBA 2014

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

"I'm scared," I said as we walked into our
new home. The house had no lights, no furniture, no running water, nothing. My
elder brother Eric, who had remained in Kenya when my parents pursued their
education in the US, stood there waiting to welcome me. He was the reason my parents
decided to come back to Kenya and I hated him for it. I held tightly onto my
father's arm, hoping that I would wake up from this nightmare. But this was my
new reality – one moment I was living in Riverside, California and the next I
was living in Kangemi, one of Nairobi's largest slums.

Even though I hated Eric for ruining "MY
family's perfect life," in him, I found something I never knew I needed – a brotherhood
that helped me get to where I am today. Many people don't have someone to help
guide them through life like I did. I am reminded of this whenever I see the squalor
that most people in Kenya face every day. I want to be there for them like Eric
was for me. I want to help the single mother who works twenty hours a day to
provide her family with basic needs such as food and water. I want to help her
children who are forced to beg for money on the streets. I want to build
organizations that provide such families with a means to get out of the vicious
cycle of poverty – because it matters.

— Kevin Omwega

The Portrait Project

Each year we ask our classmates a straightforward, simple question taken from the lines of a poem by Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Mary Oliver.
We share with you intimate and candid responses to this question, "Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"